- Category: Statements
30th July, 2018
Manila: This day marks the completion of 13 years since the enforced disappearance of Masood Janjua, a businessman from Pakistan. Masood disappeared on 30th July, 2005 along with his friend Faisal Faraz, a 25 year old engineer from Lahore, while they were travelling in a bus to Peshawar. On this day, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) remembers him and seeks justice for him and his family.
- Category: Statements
20th July, 2018
Manila: AFAD strongly condemns the slandering statements made against Sombath Somphone and his family during a United Nations Review of the deteriorating human rights conditions in Laos.
Sombath Somphone was a community development worker from Laos who was disappeared on 15th of December 2012. Since then, the family of Sombath has been running a campaign called ‘Return Sombath Campaign’ to know the truth about what happened to him and seek justice from the Lao government.
- Category: Press Releases
Press Release
Jakarta, Indonesia and Dili, Timor-Leste
13 July 2018
15 July 2018 marks the 10th anniversary of Per Memoriam Ad Spem [Through Memory towards Hope], the final report of the Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) of Indonesia and Timor-Leste. This initiative, the only bilateral commission in the world, was tasked with strengthening peace and friendship between the two countries by revealing the conclusive truth about the nature, scope, and causes of the violence committed in East Timor in 1999. Many people appreciated the CTF as the way to acknowledge the past and support the building of good relationships.
- Category: Press Releases
ASSOCIATION OF PARENTS OF DISAPPEARED PERSONS
The Bund AmiraKadal, Srinagar – 190001, Jammu and Kashmir
Press Release, 12 July 2018
For twenty-four years, the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and its individual members and volunteers have been campaigning against the phenomenon of enforced or involuntary disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir, wherein more than 8000 people have disappeared since 1989. Today, JK SHRC passed a crucial order directing Senior Superintendent of Police of the SHRC police wing to hold an enquiry, if necessary, into 132 cases of disappearance in Banihal Tehsil (Ramban district, Jammu division) and 507 cases of disappearance in Baramulla and Bandipora districts (Kashmir division) and file a report within three months.
- Category: Statements
11 July 2010 - Today, AFAD remembers Redemptorist priest and social justice activist Fr. Rudy Romano with profound honor and respect on his 33rd year of enforced disappearance. Devoted to the poor and marginalized, Fr. Romano staunchly condemned the barefaced culture of impunity and violence during Ferdinand Marcos’ tyrannical regime. He wholeheartedly served the poor by dedicating his life toward the attainment of justice and peace, and sharing meaningful teachings centered on ‘conscience toward genuine freedom. On July 11, 1985, witnesses said that Fr. Romano was taken by military intelligence agents in Labangon, Cebu City, which was the last time he was publicly seen.
- Category: Press Releases
3 July 2018
Press Statement
Odhikar would like to express its immense concern and condemnation regarding the horrificOdhikar would like to express its immense concern and condemnation regarding the horrificattacks by the Chhatra League leaders have unleashed on students protesting for the reformationof the quota on government jobs, since 30 June 2018; along with the police barring protestorsfrom holding protest programmes on this issue, the police picking up a protestor of theMovement and disappearing him for one day - before showing him as arrested; and arrestinganother protestor and taking him into remand. Even though such attacks are being carried out onstudents from Dhaka University and other universities, Odhikar condemns the fact that theperpatrators have not been brought to justice and the government chooses to remain silentregarding this matter.
- Category: Statements
Today, on the 26th of June 2018, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) commemorated the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. AFAD stands in solidarity with the victims of torture across the globe and condemns this inhuman treatment of individuals.
- Category: Press Releases
OHCHR remote monitoring report released
Press Release
14 June 2018
JKCCS and APDP welcome today’s important report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Geneva. This is the first report by the United Nations exclusively on Indian administered (IaK) and Pakistan administered (PaK) Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). After continually being denied access since 2016, the OHCHR has based this report (49 pages in total) on its remote monitoring of the situation on ground, with closer attention to the period of July 2016 to April 2018.